I’m Not Thinking About My Injury Anymore – Merino

Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino has opened up on the psychological toll of a five-month injury layoff that left him fearing for his professional career. He recently revealed that he feared he might never play again, and fans have been reacting.

Speaking following his return to first-team training after undergoing surgery on a rare foot fracture, the Spanish international expressed immense gratitude for the unwavering solidarity shown by his teammates during his difficult time.

Appreciating the transformative power of the encouragement he received from the Arsenal hierarchy, Merino declared that he is not thinking about his injury anymore.

His words, “It was a stress fracture in a very strange part of the foot that not even the specialists had seen before. It was a weird one at the beginning, I was a little bit scared because we didn’t have examples from other people who had the same injury, so we didn’t know what to expect from it, what path to go through during the recovery and if I was going to be able to play again.

It was very hard at the beginning. I was playing through pain for a little bit but I wasn’t expecting that a big fracture was going to happen there. So when they said it would be around a five-month injury, I could only think about missing the World Cup and the last bit of the season with my team, and not being able to help them, so I was devastated at the time.

It took me a couple of days to recover from it, but looking at it, I had two options: go down and cry myself to extinction or just keep my head up, be positive and try to use my time to improve other aspects. Working as hard as I can is the way I have to approach life.

This morning I woke up and I was feeling like it was the first day of school! Going there nervous, seeing all my teammates and being around them for the first time, it’s just unbelievable to get all that love from them.

My foot is great, I’m not even thinking about it anymore. I’m really pleased to be outside with the lads today. I’ve been training really hard, not only on the grass but also inside with the strength and conditioning team and the physios, trying to give everything every single day to be as close to perfection when I’m back with the team. I think I’m very good, I feel fit and I’m ready to go.”

WOW.

Arsenal Football Club is an English professional football club based in Holloway, North London. Arsenal compete in the Premier League, the top flight of English football.

The club has won 13 league titles (including one unbeaten title), a record 14 FA Cups, two League Cups, 17 FA Community Shields, the Football League Centenary Trophy, one European Cup Winners’ Cup and one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. In terms of trophies won, it is the third-most successful club in English football.

After conducting an overhaul in the club’s operating model to coincide with Wenger’s departure, Spaniard Unai Emery was named as the club’s new head coach on 23 May 2018. He became the club’s first ever ‘head coach’ and second manager from outside the United Kingdom.

In Emery’s first season, Arsenal finished fifth in the Premier League and as runner-up in the Europa League. On 29 November 2019, Emery was dismissed as manager and former player and assistant first team coach Freddie Ljungberg was appointed as interim head coach. On 20 December 2019, Arsenal appointed former club captain Mikel Arteta as the new head coach. Arsenal finished the league season in eighth, their lowest finish since 1994–95, but beat Chelsea 2–1 to earn a record-extending 14th FA Cup win. After the season. Arteta’s title was changed from head coach to manager.